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Staff at a Scarborough-based charity that offers support and facilities for people living with disabilities are asking for help to repair flood damage that they say will compromise their services.

“The disability community has very few places where they can access a fitness club facility. Cutting down on our services would be a significant blow to the community of people with disabilities,” John Willson, the Chief Executive Officer of Variety Village said.

The not-for-profit charity with a large facility on Danforth Ave. offers programs for all ages of people with a range of abilities. They have over 600 members, some being paralympic athletes currently competing in London. The building, which holds a pool, and a large auditorium with a track and basketball court, sustained major flood damage in the heavy rainfalls this summer.

“The rainstorm in July brought down so much water that it overwhelmed the drainage system on the roof and that came through the vents and flooded the basement that was the taekwondo studio,” Willson said, adding that the next rain storm in August flooded the room again, ruining all the taekwondo equipment, damaging everything on the floor and putting toys that were donated 6 inches under water.

“Now because of that, we have to do some significant maintenance and repair work in order to prevent this from happening over and over,” Willson said.

Insurance is partially covering the cost but there is still about $70,000 that Variety Village, which doesn’t receive any regular funding from any level of government, needs to come up with.

Willson said the charity, that runs on corporate and individual donations, is appealing to the public for help.

Lynda Elmy, the Director of Communications, said she has seen how the damage has affected the facility and its members first-hand.

She said the staff are worried that the weight room, which hosts several programs, could become flooded with the next storm. The taekwondo studio, home to several of the facility’s favourite programs, allows the members to interact within their peer groups and teaches them self esteem, is unusable until the damage is fixed.

“We provide great programs to people living with disabilities in the city, and we provide those services from grassroots up to podium levels. Without help, we won’t be able to offer some of our services and these people will have nowhere to go for that,” she said.